High profile guests at this year’s London Press Club ball included LBC’s Vanessa Feltz while former Dynasty star Emma Samms also brought some Hollywood glamour to proceedings, attending with her husband, former BBC news presenter Simon McCoy. The couple married in October 2021 – the day after attending that year’s Ball, having kept their impending wedding plans a secret throughout.
Among those adding a regal air to the Ball were ITN royal editor Chris Ship, Sky News royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills, Daily Mail royal editor Rebecca English, and former Buckingham Palace press secretary Ailsa Anderson.
Also attending was the Princess of Wales’s entrepreneur uncle and Celebrity Big Brother contestant Gary Goldsmith and his daughter, Catherine’s cousin, Tallulah.
International media attending included: director of the Foreign Press Association Deborah Bonetti; Benedicte Paviot of France 24; and Antonello Guerrera, UK and Ireland correspondent for Italy’s La Repubblica.
A strong Daily Mail contingent included chief reporter Sam Greenhill and Whitehall editor (and Sky News guest newspaper reviewer) Claire Ellicott, investigations editor Tom Kelly and deputy investigations editor Inderdeep Bains.
They were joined by Metro executive editor Richard Hartley-Parkinson, Daily Mirror associate editor and royal editor for ITV’s ‘Lorraine’ Russell Myers, and Daily Express assistant news editor and columnist Mieka Smiles, and former Daily Mail managing editor Charles Garside.
A number of young journalists starting out on their careers attended from the News Associates NCTJ Training Course.
Guests from the world of PR included Charles Lewington OBE. chairman of Hanover Communications and a former political journalist and press secretary to Prime Minister to John Major, as well as Soho Communications director and former Daily Mail political editor James Chapman, who was head of communications at the Treasury under Conservative Chancellor George Osborne.
